John Vernou Bouvier Jr.

John Vernou Bouvier Jr. (August 12, 1866 – January 15, 1948) and Caroline Maslin (née Ewing) Bouvier (1844–1929). His father was a U.S. Civil War veteran who served as aide-de-camp on the staff of General Marsena R. Patrick and was one of the earliest members of the New York Stock Exchange. In addition to crafting fine furniture, Bouvier had a business distributing firewood which led to his acquisition of nearly 800,000 acres of forest, some of which turned out to contain large reserves of coal.

His early education was from private tutors in the United States and in France, then he attended the Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School in New York City.

Career On June 28, 1888, Bouvier was admitted to the bar in New York and began working with the Hoadley, Lauterbach & Johnson firm. During World War I, he was commissioned a major in the Judge Advocate General's Department of the Army, the legal arm of the United States Army. After the war, he resumed the practice of law, with various firms, including Bouvier & Beale at 165 Broadway with his son-in-law Phelan Beale, until his retirement in 1930. Bouvier, who also held a seat on the Exchange, kept a diary and wrote on October 29, 1929, also known as "Black Tuesday" of the 1929 crash, "XXXX Blackest Panic Day of All. Record 16,410,000 shares traded. No bids at last prices. No bids--no bids". Upon his uncle's death in 1935, the firm was dissolved.

Bouvier worked as a trial attorney for 40 years, specializing in contracts, testamentary law, torts, securities, and stock exchanges. He served as general counsel for the Aetna Life Insurance Company, the Travelers Insurance Company, the Equitable Life Insurance Company, and the Metropolitan Street Railway Company. She was the daughter of British born merchant William Roberts Sergeant and Edith Matilda (née Leaman) Sergeant. Together, they lived at Woodcroft, an estate in Nutley, New Jersey built in 1895, who married Janet Norton Lee, daughter of real estate developer James T. Lee, in 1928. They divorced in Reno, Nevada in July 1940. William Sergeant "Bud" Bouvier (1893–1929), a 1915 Yale graduate who died in Los Olivos, California. Edith Ewing Bouvier (1895–1977), who married Phelan Beale Sr. in 1917. (Beale's grandfather, John Dennis Phelan, a Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama, administered the oath of office to Jefferson Davis when he became president of the Confederate States of America in 1861.) They divorced in 1939 and she remarried to Harrington Putnam Jr. (1906–1978) in 1946. In 1955, they also divorced. Maude Reppelin Bouvier (1905–1999), a twin of Michelle. She was married to stockbroker John Ethelbert Davis (1900–1966), a half-brother of Flora Curzon, Lady Howe.

Around 1910, Bouvier bought a home on Long Island, known as Wildmoor on Apaquogue Road in the Georgica Pond section of East Hampton. In 1925, his wife bought the much larger estate, known as Lasata, (Lasata was also the name of Bouvier's uncle's summer home in Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island.)

He was a member of the Maryland Society of Cincinnati (admitted in 1918), the Sons of the Revolution (of which he was General-President for two terms), and the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. He was buried at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Cemetery in East Hampton.

Descendants Through his eldest son John, he was the grandfather of First Lady of the United States Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (who married John F. Kennedy in 1953 and Aristotle Onassis in 1968 ) and socialite Lee Radziwill, who married Prince Stanisław Albrecht Radziwiłł. Through his daughter Edith, he was the grandfather of Edith Bouvier Beale, Phelan Beale, Jr., and Bouvier Beale. Through his daughter Maude, he was the grandfather of author John Hagy Davis.